Cannes

 I did get some work done, as well

honest!

Vanity of vanities! All is vanity

I've finally made my first proper vanity case

I've been wanting to make one for some time and have been putting it off - not sure I could handle that tricky invention, the common zipper. So I decided to do my homework, read a couple of tutorials, watched a how-to on you-tube, and in the end it wasn't difficult at all. It did, however, take forever to do, as I made it all by hand. I already have other ideas for zippery projects, but next time I'm using a sewing machine.

 The vanity case has already gone to a new home

Here you can see it wrapped and ready and smelling nice

Happy Birthday Michal

 Two years to go until our trip

She says she wants to go to Mexico

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Inspiration Monday

Some photos of nice crafts that I took during my recent trip to Wales 

(they really do like their sheep over there)

I also brought back craft magazines and some wool, but that really goes without saying

Nothing Like a Picnic

Especially when the weather is nice

We used one of the blankets I make for dolls and Dana's new kitchen set to throw a nice picnic for the dolls. We laid out some real snacks for them. They didn't really go for the food, but it disappeared all the same

The rat fetched a wicker picnic basket. "Shove that under your feet!"

"What's inside?"

"There's cold chicken inside," said Rat, "cold-tongue-cold-ham-cold-beef-pickled-onions-salad-french-bread-cress-and-widge-spotted-meat-ginger-beer-lemonade — "

"Oh stop!" cried Mole in ecstasy. "This is too much!"

"Do you think so?" said Rat, seriously. "It's only what I always take on these little outings."

The Wind in the Willows

Wordless Wednesday

Let There Be Light

Every once in a while I make something

And it comes out even nicer than I imagined it

Those are the best

Today I am showing my first ever lamp-shade! When I found it on its way to the skip, it was covered by a plain white fabric with some generic pattern, which I saved (of course) for future use. I stripped it to its frame and crocheted a new cover in cotton, playing with the same wool and a different design for each of the six panels. It now hangs in my sister's house.

I thought that it might be interesting to show the process, as well as the result, so a few more photos. And I'm hoping to do another one, maybe a table lamp. Hopefully the skip will provide.

perhaps the most beautiful place in beautiful wales

The Dyffryn gardens and house are lovely and vibrant and fun

 and their coolness level is further elevated when you learn that not one but three episodes of Doctor Who were shot there

Home Thoughts from Abroad

Memories of this green coolness
Will have to sustain me all through the summer

OH, to be in England now that April ’s there
And whoever wakes in England sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now! (Robert Browning)